I gotta be honest: I just watched National Treasure, which led me to Google if there was actually a hidden room in Mount Rushmore, and I was pretty surprised when there was! So here are 17 famous places with unexpectedly hidden rooms and passages.
1.
For starters, there’s an unfinished, hidden records room in Mount Rushmore behind Abraham Lincoln’s head. The architect meant for it to house important documents like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but when he died, his son finished the carving on the mountain but not the room.
3.
There’s an additional balcony on the Statue of Liberty’s torch that’s been closed for over 100 years. However, there is a webcam mounted to it so you can see the view from it.
4.
There’s an apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was meant for Gustav Eiffel to host company.
5.
There is an underground city in Seattle. In 1889, a fire decimated the wooden structures built on marshland in Seattle. The fix was to pour a foundation and build structures out of concrete. When they did that, they essentially built a city on top of a city. Now, Seattle’s 150-year-old original streets and passageways are available to tour via Seattle Underground.
6.
The New York Public Library has four million books stored under Bryant Park in the Milstein Research Stacks. The hidden stacks are inaccessible to the public, but anyone can request a book with their library card, and a cute lil book trail will transport it up from the stacks for you.
7.
Speaking of New York Public Libraries, 13 of them have hidden apartments above them, now in disrepair but previously used by maintenance workers and their families.
8.
Track 61 is a secret track at Grand Central Terminal that was used to carry FDR from Grand Central Station to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
9.
There is a prison cell inside Big Ben. It was there in case anyone had to be removed from Parliament.
10.
There is a secret chamber inside the chest of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro with a stone heart.
11.
There’s a bunker under the Brooklyn Bridge. It was fully stocked during the Cold War, then forgotten about until maintenance workers rediscovered it in 2006.
12.
It may not be super secret, but I didn’t know the Arc de Triomphe is hollow inside, with the top of the arch being a small museum. Additionally, the Washington Square Arch is hollow inside and used to house an office for the Parks and Recreation Department.
15.
Disney Parks have an exclusive club called Club 33, hiding in plain sight. There’s one at each of the four theme parks in Orlando, and there’s a version at the two parks in California. It’s by invite only, super expensive, and the waitlist is rumored to be years long.
16.
Mount Sainte-Odile, a monastery in France, couldn’t figure out why books were disappearing from the library, which was off-limits to visitors. They soon found a secret passage activated by pushing in a shelf and caught a teacher with a passion for old manuscripts who had stolen over 1,000 via a secret corridor.
17.
Finally, in the 1500s, Michelangelo angered the Pope and went into hiding with the Medici family for two months in a secret room in one of their chapels. Centuries later, in 1975, the room was discovered with massive charcoal murals made by Michelangelo while he was hiding.
Related
Discover more from InstiWitty Media Studios
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
